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PARTISAN REVIEW
like Kissinger.
Enough of these confessions about the unreal. Let us imagine a position
in France comparable to that of advisor for diplomacy and defense. None of
the presidents of the Fifth Republic has needed such an advisor, and none of
them would have accepted him. And the position would not have been very
exciting. A substantial part of General de Gaulle's diplomacy did not go be–
yond stage management. What remains from his journeys to Latin America,
Rumania, or Poland, but the memory of acclaim? A few of his decisions re–
main: leaving the integrated command of NATO, attempting and failing at a
Franco-German alliance designed to remove the two countries from
"American hegemony," reestablishing relations with Moscow (neither under–
standing nor cooperation followed from this detente). Since then, French
diplomacy has been composed of two aspects: permanent negotiations with
our partners in the European Community and action in the rest of the world.
In Africa, France is attempting to preserve its sphere ofintluence, to
maintain its links with Francophone countries. From time to time, crises arise,
in Chad, the Central African Republic, Kinshasa. DeCisions, correct or not,
require neither clairvoyance nor uncommon courage. In the Near East,
French diplomacy has hardly gone beyond declarations, for lack of the means
necessary to have a direct effect on events. France is absent £i·om no part of
the world but, even though the presidents of the Fifth Republic, like American
presidents, act as their own foreign ministers, they delude themselves. Since
the death of the General, except lor Britain's entry into the European Com–
munity, French diplomacy has remained in the same groove. This is not what
gives France its place in the world; it is the French themselves, the quality of
their work and of their culture.
I envisaged neither a ministry, nor an ambassadorship, even less a seat
on the Conseil Constitutionnel, which was offered to me. What made me run
and still occasionally awakens in me anxiety and hope is the question that I
constantly asked myself: Did my teaching have some value for the young
people who listened to me? Did the teaching contained in my articles serve
my country, the instruction of my readers, the reputation of French journal–
ism outside France? Did I serve some function for the thirty years during
which, in all circumstances, I wrote at least an article each month?
During my dozen years at the Sorbonne, I felt little concern about the
influence I might have. I brought to my students, Marxist or not, the theory
of industrial society, the political philosophy ofSpinoza, the sociological inter–
pretation of Montesquieu, the study of international relations. This teaching
may not have had the same value, in some respects, as the teaching of a
specialist in questionnaires would have had for the few destined for careers
as sociologists. But, given the student public in those years of transition be-
